Employee productivity is one of the most important factors for every business owner out there. After all, it’s an aspect of running a company that has a direct effect on its profitability. Luckily, we now live in an age when we can measure employee productivity and come up with ways for giving it a boost.
That’s exactly what many experts focus on and they’ve managed to create a number of techniques for helping employees get more work done. If you’re looking to increase productivity in your workplace, here are five of them you should know about.
Table of Contents
Ways to Increase Workplace Productivity
1. Don’t let your employees multitask
Even though we all believe that we’re getting more work done when we tackle multiple tasks at once, the myth of multitasking has been debunked a long time ago. Studies show that only 2 percent of people can multitask successfully and for the rest of the population it only has a negative effect. Multitasking splits the brain and dedicates one-half of grey matter to each task. As a result, you and your employees are more likely to make mistakes when multitasking.
Not to mention that multitasking also creates stress, sucking all the energy out of you and decreasing your focus. If your team members’ work requires them to be creative, they shouldn’t be forced into multitasking as creativity requires a stress-free environment.
2. Stop noise from running your office
With the trend of having an open-plan office, more and more companies seem to be dealing with the issue of unwanted noise. Although it makes collaboration easier, this type of office design seriously affects employees’ ability to focus and stay productive. Plus, most offices are now located next to busy streets and eliminating the noise coming from outside is impossible.
Luckily, there are things you can do to not let all that noise run your office. For example, you can use plants for decoration as greenery is known to be quite helpful when dealing with noise pollution.
Getting noise-canceling headphones is also a good idea, as long as your employees create work-friendly playlists. There’s a wide range of noise-canceling headphones made by companies like Sony and Jabra that may be exactly what your office needs.
3. Don’t forget about office supplies
There are reasons why every business needs the right set of office supplies in the workplace. Studies have shown that these little things can boost time management by 38 percent when used correctly. But in order for your employees to be able to do that, you first have to ensure they have every item they might need.
Things such as notebooks and notepads are needed to write own things in meetings and come up with a plan for the next week. Self-stick removable notes you can find at Winc Australia are also something every employee needs to stay organized. They also can’t use a mouse without a quality mouse pad nor can they organize their documents without folders.
4. Recognize and reward your employees
One of the key aspects of being productive is feeling happy. If your team members feel like all the hard work they put in has been recognized, they’ll be more likely to perform better. The good news is, there are so many ways you can recognize and reward your employees even if your company doesn’t have the budget large corporations do. In fact, something as old school as a handwritten note is guaranteed to do the trick.
Of course, if your budget allows it, there are more expensive but more effective options you can go for as well. For example, BambooHR, an HR software company from the US, gives their employees a certain amount of money to put towards vacation every year. Unique employee rewards like this allow for increased workplace productivity and advantage when it comes to recruiting talent.
5. Break the routine
Aligning the tasks with your employees’ skills and having them do the same thing for 40 hours a week is often seen as a good idea. However, this results in monotony, which has the potential to seriously jeopardize your company’s operations. To break it, you need to rotate job responsibilities every now and then and even think about introducing new roles if it feels necessary.
Things like this can have a positive effect on your employees’ productivity levels as it allows them to expand their skillset and gain a better understanding of how the company works. Also, if your team members spend their entire week in the office, keep coming up with new ways to get them outside and find inspiration elsewhere.
Final thoughts
The low productivity in the office can have a serious impact on your operations and decrease your profit. Rely on these five techniques to ensure this doesn’t happen to your company. What’s more, they’ll even help you build an even better team and achieve more.
About Carson Derrow
